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While the American people typically have the opportunity to correct a bad election result four years later, a bad
legal precedent may last forever. Eagle Forum Education
& Legal Defense Fund has focused on cases that would set
the most important legal precedents and for which the
outcome was in doubt.

Eagle Forum filed amicus curiae briefs in ten key
cases defending conservative principles and supplementing
arguments made by the parties in the cases. Six of these
ten briefs were filed in U.S. Supreme Court cases. Four
were in filed in Courts of Appeals: the Third, Fifth, Ninth,
and D.C. Circuits. In most of these cases, the liberal side
was predicted to prevail.

Of the six cases before the Supreme Court, the side
taken by Eagle Forum won in four, battled to a draw in the
fifth, and the sixth is still pending. Three of the Supreme
Court victories were 5-4 decisions. Of the four Courts of
Appeals cases, the side taken by Eagle Forum battled to a
draw in the Ninth, persuaded a judge to file a vigorous
dissent in the DC Circuit, persuaded the entire Fifth
Circuit to rehear its case en banc, and the Third Circuit
case is still pending.

1. The Violence Against Women Case: United States v.
Morrison.
This was the feminists' most important case and they
were determined to win it. At least 67 liberal or feminist
organizations filed amicus briefs on their side, but only a
couple of amicus briefs were filed on the constitutional
side. At stake was an attempted takeover of marriage and
domestic relations law by the federal government (which
would have been one of the results of the defeated Equal
Rights Amendment).

This case involved the constitutionality of a section of
a 1994 statute, the Violence Against Women's Act
(VAWA), that federalizes some gender issues such as rape.
VAWA gave plaintiffs (and trial lawyers) the right to sue
in federal court for damages from alleged activities that
have never constituted federal crimes. This case was
about trying to recover a money judgment in federal court
by alleging a rape that was not promptly reported to the
police and was never proved. VAWA included a provision
awarding attorneys' fees, creating a bonanza for attorneys
seeking to intimidate defendants with allegations of rape.

No one is helped, least of all women, when a victim of
a crime turns to a contingency-fee attorney rather than to
the local police. Real violence is restrained by law enforcement, not by a civil lawsuit, years later, trying to sift
fact from fiction.

Eagle Forum's position: The federal government
should not grab new powers over matters that the U.S.
Constitution reserves exclusively to state jurisdiction, such
as marriage, rape, domestic violence, and other gender-related issues. Only a constitutional amendment can
effect such a fundamental transfer of power.

Result: The Supreme Court, by a 5-4 vote on May 15,
2000, declared the VAWA provision to be an unconstitutional extension of federal power.

2. The English Language Case: Alexander v. Sandoval.
This was an attempt to balkanize the United States by
requiring the State of Alabama to offer official driver's
license exams in foreign languages. Special-interests have
lobbied for years to undermine English as our national
language, and they've been using the power and money of
government, the public schools, and the courts to further
their goal.

After two lower courts held that Alabama must
provide Martha Sandoval with a driver's test in Spanish,
President Clinton attempted to elevate the inability to
speak English to a protected right under the Civil Rights
Act with his Executive Order 13166 issued August 11,
2000, entitled Improving Access to Services for Persons
with Limited English Proficiency. This requires federal
agencies to provide all services in foreign languages. Janet
Reno followed with 15 pages of "guidance" four days
before Clinton left office.

Eagle Forum's position: No federal agency or state
should be required to do official business in any language
other than English. Our government should speak to us
only in the language of the U.S. Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, all our statutes and court decisions.
This enormous body of law developed in English, over
more than 200 years, cannot be translated into another
language without altering the constitutional principles
themselves. Many constitutional terms such as "due
process of law," "common law," "freedom of speech,"
"separation of powers," "federalism," "state's rights,"
"rule of law," and "limited government" do not translate
accurately into other languages. Foreign-speaking voters
can be easily led to vote for liberal candidates. The
English language is the most important tie that binds us
together as a nation and makes us e pluribus unum.

Result: The 5-4 Supreme Court decision on April 24,
2001 rejected Sandoval's argument and ruled that she did
not have a cause of action to demand the driver's test in
Spanish. However, the Court based its opinion on a
threshold finding that individuals cannot claim "discrimination" and sue over this issue, leaving for a future day the
fundamental issue of the preeminence of the English
language in the United States. Clinton's Executive Order
should be rescinded because it was based on lower-court
decisions now overturned. Regrettably, the Bush Justice
Department is still enforcing it.

3. The Boy Scout case: Boy Scouts of America v. Dale.
Do the Boy Scouts have the freedom to associate by
excluding homosexuals? The New Jersey courts said No,
calling the Boy Scouts a "public accommodation." This
was one of the most important cases of the decade.

Eagle Forum's position: The Boy Scouts of America,
like churches, should have full freedom of association to
define the criteria for its members. Joining Eagle Forum's
brief were Cato Institute, Texas Justice Foundation,
Southeastern Legal Foundation, Association of American
Physicians and Surgeons, Independent Women's Forum,
and Center for Individual Rights.

Result: The Supreme Court on June 28, 2000 ruled 5-4
in favor of freedom of association for the Boy Scouts. The
campaign to change or destroy the Boy Scouts continues in
other venues, but the Scouts now have the Supreme Court
on their side.

4. California Blanket Primary Case: California
Democratic Party et al v. Jones.
California passed a referendum requiring a wide-open
"blanket" primary system, in which all voters could vote in
all primaries (i.e., all parties listed on the same primary
ballot, thus allowing Democrats to vote on the nomination
of Republican candidates, and vice versa). This is very
different from the "open" primary, used in many states,
where voters must declare which party ballot they want in
the primary and vote only for candidates in that party. The
advocates of the "blanket" primary were frank in stating
that their purpose was to get more "moderate" candidates
nominated and make it harder for true conservatives to be
nominated.

Eagle Forum's position: Political parties should have
the right to limit voting in their primaries to voters who
declare their party affiliation. This promotes elections
based on principles rather than personalities.

Result: The Supreme Court invalidated the California
"blanket" primary by 7-2 on June 26, 2000. Justice Scalia,
writing for the Court, adopted nearly verbatim a key
argument in Eagle Forum's brief concerning the importance of Abraham Lincoln's being able to define the
Republican Party during its pivotal early years.

5. Family Education Rights and Privacy Case: Falvo
v. Owasso Independent School District.
The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act
(FERPA) prevents the unauthorized release of student
records and ensures parental access to their children's
school records. The Supreme Court is now reviewing
FERPA for the first time, on appeal from a pro-parent
decision by the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. The case
involves an Oklahoma public school where students were
publicly grading each other's papers.

Eagle Forum's position: FERPA is a good law that has
been fairly administered since 1974, and its jurisdiction
should not be narrowed by the Supreme Court. FERPA
protects family rights, and an expansive interpretation is
much preferable to a narrow view limiting parental rights,
which is sought by the public school system and by the
Justice Department. Because of mandatory school attendance laws, families need FERPA to guard against improper behavior by school officials and the exchange of
data with non-school agencies.

Result: The Supreme Court will decide this case early
next year.

6. State Regulation of Direct Mail Fundraising: Giani
v. American Target Advertising.
Over the past decade, states have become increasingly
burdensome in regulating direct-mail fundraising, the
lifeblood of many conservative organizations. These
regulations are intrusive and costly to comply with, and are
often used by liberals to block conservatives from mailing
fundraising letters. At issue in this case was a Utah statute
requiring (1) application for a license, (2) financial disclosures to the Utah Division of Consumer Protection, (3)
payment of a $250 annual registration fee, and (4) posting
a $25,000 bond or letter of credit, all merely to be allowed
to request contributions. The Tenth Circuit Court of
Appeals struck down the bond requirement but upheld the
other regulations.

Eagle Forum's position: Such state regulations interfere with valuable political speech, our First Amendment
right.

Result: The Supreme Court declined to hear the case,
leaving all the regulations intact except the bond requirement under the Tenth Circuit's decision of January 13,
2000.

7. Nosy Questionnaire Case: C.N. v. Ridgewood School
District.
A lengthy and highly offensive questionnaire was
administered to young students in a public school in
Ridgewood, New Jersey. One question asked students
whether they had tried to commit suicide, and if so how
many times. Many questions implied that illegal drug use
is normal behavior. Parents had not given their consent for
this social engineering, which lacked any redeeming
educational value. Unfortunately, this nosy questionnaire
was typical of intrusive surveys commonly given in public
schools.

Eagle Forum's position: Children should not be asked
to answer psychological, non-academic or incriminating
questions unless the school gets prior written parental
consent. Eagle Forum is a longtime opponent of nosy,
intrusive questionnaires given to schoolchildren. Eagle
Forum has always been a big supporter of the federal
Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment, passed in 1978,
which bars psychological or psychiatric tests or treatment
without prior written parental consent, but whose enforcement is adamantly opposed by the public school establishment.

Result: The Third Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral
argument on November 9, 2001 and will likely rule by
early next year.

8. Disney Mickey Mouse Case: Eldred v. Reno(now
Eldred v. Ashcroft).
In a unique accomplishment of corporate lobbying,
both the U.S. House and Senate passed on the same day
(10-7-98) the Copyright Term Extension Act, a law worth
at least a billion dollars to the Disney Corporation. This
law extended existing copyrights for an additional 20
years, amounting to a financial windfall for the Disney
Corporation, whose copyrights on Mickey Mouse, Pluto,
Goofy, Donald Duck and Winnie the Pooh would soon
expire, as well as to the holders of copyrights on the Happy
Birthday song (owned by AOL Time-Warner), and other
works. Under the new "Disney" law, copyrights now run
for 70 years plus the life of the author, and 95 years for
corporations. (By comparison, the life of patents today is
only 20 years from the date of application.)

The U.S. Constitution grants Congress the power to
protect copyrights (and patents) only "for limited times,"
after which the work goes into the public domain. The
Constitution states that the purpose of this clause is "to
promote the progress of science and useful arts." (The
framers of our Constitution set the "limited times" of
copyrights at 14 years plus one 14-year renewal.)

Eagle Forum's position: Copyright protection should
be granted only "for limited times," as our Constitution
requires, and the Disney law unconstitutionally makes the
"times" virtually unlimited. More importantly, retroactive
extensions of copyright for artwork created long ago are
unconstitutional because they do not encourage "the
progress of science and useful arts." Misuse of copyright
to stop free speech is also unconstitutional.

Result: The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against
us 2-1, but Eagle Forum's amicus brief had a big impact.
The dissent agreed with us completely, while the other two
judges ducked our arguments by saying that the main party
had not raised them. The case is now pending for review
by the Supreme Court.

9. The Building Codes Case: Veeck v. SBCCI.
All laws, court judgments, and other government
documents have traditionally been in the public domain
(i.e., not copyrighted) because the public owns the law and
has an obvious need to have unrestricted access to the laws
and regulations that bind us. In recent years, there has
been a trend toward the government making deals with
private organizations to adopt their codes as binding
regulations, which the organizations then sell under their
own copyright. In this case, Veeck put the local building
code on his website and then faced a copyright-violation
lawsuit by the organization that claims to own the code.

Eagle Forum's position: Private organizations should
not have ownership over mandatory government rules and
regulations, and then be in a position to charge fees for
their use.

Result: The Fifth Circuit upheld by 2-1 the building
code association's claim to own the regulation, but the
strong dissent was convinced by the argument that citizens
should have unrestricted access to laws and regulations.
Eagle Forum filed a brief in support of reconsideration en
banc by all the Fifth Circuit judges, and they then agreed
to rehear the case. Eagle Forum subsequently filed another
brief before all the judges. Remarkably, ten states and
territories have now filed a brief supporting Eagle Forum's
side.

10. The Napster Case: Napster v. A.M. Records.
Napster was an internet search engine that was initially
shut down by a federal judge based on allegations by
recording companies that some were improperly using
Napster to download copyrighted music.

Eagle Forum's position: Eagle Forum opposes giving
middlemen or gatekeepers, or federal judges, the power to
censor the distribution of information on the internet. The
internet provides valuable competition to news media and
other forms of information distribution, and is a positive
force that has reduced the liberal stranglehold on the
media. The impeachment of Bill Clinton was at least
partially the result of Drudge using the internet to bypass
the censoring middlemen (the media establishment).

Result: The Ninth Circuit agreed that the federal
judge should not have summarily shut down the entire
Napster service (Feb. 12, 2001). However, Napster
continued to encounter legal difficulties that crippled its
service.

The Awesome Power of Legal Precedent
Some of the most far-reaching social and economic
decisions of our times have been established by legal
precedent rather than by our elected representatives. These
include criminal procedures, prayer and the Ten Commandments in public schools, internal security, pornography, forced busing, racial preferences and quotas, term
limits, abortion, and welfare payments.

Activist liberal judges have sometimes admitted that
they are, in fact, rewriting the Constitution. Justice
William Douglas, late in his 36-year Supreme Court
career, admitted that the due process clause is the "wildcard to be put to such use as the judges choose."

Justice William J. Brennan in a 1982 speech revealed
the mindset of the liberal activist judges who have convinced themselves that they are divinely ordained to rule
over lesser Americans. He argued for "the evolution of
constitutional doctrine" and for law itself "to rethink its
role." In previous eras, he said, "the function of law was
to formalize and preserve (accumulated) wisdom," but
"over the past 40 years Law has come alive as a living
process responsive to changing human needs." He bragged
that "evolution of constitutional law has been, in fact, a
moving consensus," and that "our constitutional guarantees and the Bill of Rights are tissue paper bastions if they
fail to transcend the printed page."

It is so important for citizens who believe in our
Constitution and the Rule of Law to present the courts with
amicus curiae briefs advocating conservative positions
before the courts make their decisions.

Landmark Case on Second Amendment
If the hijackers had used guns for their crimes on 9/11,
we would surely now be caught up in a frenzy of demands
that this "lesson" calls for tough gun-control legislation.
But they didn't use any firearms, just easily purchased
box-cutters.

The real lesson of 9/11 is that, if any pilot or off-duty
policeman had had a gun on board, he could have averted
supreme tragedy by doing what our powerful FBI, CIA,
and Armed Services could not do. The American people
understand this. That's why the 9/11 events have led to a
big increase in gun purchases and the taking of courses at
shooting ranges. The Founding Fathers understood this,
too, and that's why they gave us the Second Amendment.

Against the stunning reality of 9/11, the federal Court
of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued a landmark decision
on October 16 in United States v. Emerson, affirming the
constitutional right of individuals to own a gun. Individuals, not government, are the ultimate protectors of a free
society.

At issue in the Emerson case was whether the Second
Amendment defines an individual right, or a collective
right available only to government groups such as the
National Guard.

The Second Amendment reads: "A well regulated
militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the
right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be
infringed." The anti-gun lobby and some lower court
decisions have touted the notion that the Second Amendment is limited to firearms carried in actual military
situations rather than by civilians in peaceful self-defense.

The Emerson decision thoroughly rejects that theory.
The Court ruled: "The plain meaning of the right of the
people to keep arms is that it is an individual, rather than
a collective, right and is not limited to keeping arms while
engaged in active military service or as a member of a
select militia such as the National Guard."

The court concludes: "It appears clear that `the
people,' as used in the Constitution, including the Second
Amendment, refers to individual Americans." This is
consistent with the use of the term "the people" in all the
other amendments in the Bill of Rights. As the Tenth
Amendment shows, the Founders understood the difference
between "the states" and "the people."

The gun control debate is really about whether we
control government and defend freedom, or government
controls us. Should our defense against hijacking terrorism
be limited to government fighter planes shooting down
hijacked planes, killing everyone on board?

The Emerson decision disposed of arguments that only
formal state militias have a constitutional right to keep and
bear arms. As the Supreme Court explained over 60 years
ago in United States v. Miller, the framers of the Constitution used the term "militia" to mean "all males physically
capable of acting in concert for the common defense."

It still does mean that. Current federal law (10 U.S.
Code 311) states: "The militia of the United States
consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age. .
. . The classes of the militia are (1) the organized militia,
which consists of the National Guard and the Naval
Militia; and (2) the unorganized militia, which consists of
the members of the militia who are not members of the
National Guard or the Naval Militia."

The men on board the hijacked airplanes were part of
the unorganized militia. A disarmed public cannot protect
a free society against terrorists' assaults. Strict gun control
creates vulnerable targets for the enemies of a free society.
The Fifth Circuit's upholding of the constitutional right of
individuals to keep and bear arms is a welcome development in our continued defense of freedom.